House Speaker McCarthy: If Biden doesn’t invite Netanyahu to Washington, I will
US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (L) and his Israeli counterpart Amir Ohana hold a bilateral meeting at the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem on April 30, 2023. (Photo by Getty)
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday said that he would soon invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington should U.S. President Joe Biden continue to refuse extending such an offer.
Speaking to Israel Hayom, the daily owned by Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson, McCarthy said “if that [a visit to the White House] doesn’t happen, I’ll invite the prime minister to come meet with the House. He’s a dear friend, as a prime minister of a country that we have our closest ties with.”
Netanyahu has been growing increasingly irritated about the lack of invitation to the White House, the longest a U.S. administration has gone without extending such an invitation to an Israeli prime minister upon assuming office. Biden explicitly noted that such an invitation is not expected anytime soon amid his rare public rebuke of Netanyahu amid his proposed overhaul of Israel’s judicial system.
McCarthy, who is currently in Israel to address the Knesset, added that “I think it’s too long now. He should invite him soon” when asked about a potential timeline for a Biden invitation. The House speaker linked Biden’s treatment of Netanyahu to his own ongoing clashes with the president over the U.S. debt ceiling, saying “President Biden hasn’t talked to me about the debt ceiling for the last 80 some days so. I think he, the prime minister, might be in good company if he treats me the same way.”
This is the first time McCarthy has commented on a potential Netanyahu invitation, using his platform to instead attack Biden for rebuking Netanyahu while declining to comment on the judicial overhaul itself.
McCarthy will be the second-ever U.S. House speaker to address the Knesset. In many ways, his visit is a culmination of recent decades in American politics relating to Israel, where Republicans have adopted increasingly pro-Israel sentiments in foreign politics while also being mindful of the domestic impact with evangelical Christian voters. His visit also comes as he faces his first true as speaker with Biden, complicating Netanyahu’s optics days after encountering a similar problem with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The apparent invitation and McCarthy’s visit invoke memories of Netanyahu addressing a joint session of Congress in March 2015, coordinated by then-Israel Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, then-House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The planning and speech itself upended domestic and international protocol, leading 58 Democratic lawmakers to boycott Netanyahu’s address, in support of the Obama administration. The event was seen as the peak of Israel’s emergence as a partisan issue where Republicans have adopted increasingly pro-Israel sentiments in both foreign and domestic politics.
In the years since, supporters of Israel’s concerns that Netanyahu’s political strategy has expedited the process of Israel – long a beneficiary of bipartisan support – evolving into a divisive issue. A recent Gallup poll noted that Democrats are more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis. It also found for the first time that Republican totals on the matter are largely static, with 78 percent supporting Israel and 11 percent supporting Palestinians or having no opinion.
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